L. W. Currey, Inc.

WILKINS, THURMAN. Clarence King: a biography [by] Thurman Wilkins. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958. 21 cm, pp. [i-vi] vii-ix [x-xiv] 1-441 [442: blank], 5 plates, publisher's black cloth stamped in silver. First edition, first printing. A well-documented life of Clarence King (1842-1901), author of Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, one of the most popular books on the range. In 1862, shortly after graduation from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, King went to California. That year, as the result of a chance meeting with William H. Brewer, leader of the Survey's field parties, he joined the California Geological Survey as an unpaid volunteer. King's experiences in the High Sierra at the head of the Kern, Kings, and San Joaquin rivers in 1864, his field work with the Survey in the Yosemite region in 1866, and his 1871 attempt to make the first ascent of Mount Whitney (he climbed Mt. Langley in error, but returned to the area in 1873 and successfully climbed the true Mount Whitney) provided material for a series of literary sketches which first appeared in the Atlantic Monthly during 1871. These sketches were collected with additions and published in 1872 as Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada. King was preeminent among American geologists of his day. He was the field leader of the Fortieth Parallel Survey from 1867 through 1873, the first director of the United States Geological Survey (1878-1880), and later achieved prominence as a mining specialist. King's literary accomplishment was summarized by William Dean Howells, foremost American critic of the time: "He has brilliantly fixed forever a place of the Great West already vanished from actuality." The 1988 second edition adds nearly thirty-five thousand words of "fresh material," largely drawn from nearly two hundred letters by Clarence King, which were not available to Wilkins during his original research. Page edges a trifle tanned, a nearly fine copy in very good dust jacket priced $7.50 on the front flap with mild fade to spine panel. (#179370).

Price: $75.00